An effective and efficient water purification process is essential for producing clean drinking water. Current large-scale water purification technology utilizes primarily one of two concepts: (1) a “reverse osmosis” process, wherein water is pressed through a semipermeable membrane to remove ions and other particulates from the water such that only clean drinking water passes through, and (2) desalination via a “multistage flash evaporation” (MSF) process, whereby saline water is heated and passed through various stages held at different pressures; in each stage, some of the water evaporates and is condensed and collected to produce clean drinking water. The latter MSF process can use, for example heat, or waste heat, captured from the burning of fossil fuels to heat the saline water and implement the desalination process, and indeed this has been done commercially. However, not all households have access to either high-tech water-purification membranes or waste heat from the burning of fossil fuels which they could use to purify their water.
Many parts of the world that have abundant sunlight do not necessarily have abundant clean water. In the sunniest areas, photovoltaic (PV) panels can be highly cost-effective.
Thus, it would be desirable to be able to harness a renewable energy source, such as solar radiation, in a water treatment process. A further advantage would be if the process could be scalable such that it could be implemented at a variety of levels thus lessening the reliance on large scale production. It would also be beneficial to make use of light which is typically considered to be unavoidably lost due to reflection from the solar panels.